Russia’s MTS sees streaming video subs jump by over half

Despite (or because of) the impact of sanctions on Russia as the war in Ukraine rages on, Russian service provider MTS has posted solid Q1 numbers for its media activities, with OTT streaming video subscribers up by over half and overall pay TV customers up by close to 30%.

The number of OTT video customers rose by 52.1% to 7.2 million, while pay TV customers including satellite, cable and IPTV as well as OTT rose by 28.7% to 11.6 million.

Telecoms did somewhat less well. Connectivity services revenue was up 3.6% to RLUB104 billion in Q1 but the number of three-month active mobile subs declined slightly to 79.8 million.

Overall, MTS posted revenues of URB139.6 billion for the quarter, up 5.8%, while adjusted OIBDA was up 2.4% to RLUB57.7 billion.

February meanwhile saw the acquisition fo ad-tech outfit Buzzoola by MTS, which it said would help accelerate the development of the company’s own ad-tech business, as well as allowing it to include the Buzzoola advertising exchange and sell-siude platfor to complement its own ad platform solutions.

Dark spots on the horizon include the yet-to-be ascertained impact of the freezing of the assets of MTS Bank on the orders of US and UK regulators.

President and CEO Vyacheslav Nikolaev praised the company’s “ecosystem strategy” or converged services strategy, with the number of relevant customers increasing by 26.7% in the year to March to 13.9 million.